Mary Lou McDonald had a point. The Government is trying to hold down the inevitable pay increases for public servants while a series of very large pay increases are being signed off for the leaders of semi-State bodies. McDonald told the Dáil on Tuesday that the €95,000 salary increase for DAA’s chief executive far exceeded the entire salary of a “nurse, a teacher, an SNA or a firefighter”. Even if public sector salaries are not generally as low as the unions make them out to be, this is mostly true. You don’t have to be a swivel-eyed revolutionary to see that a lot of people might have an issue with that. Economic populism might be short-sighted as an analysis of society and limited as a political strategy but that doesn’t mean it is wrong about everything.
There has been a procession of semi-State chief executives lining up for pay increases this year following an independent review of their salaries and recruitment last year. It will not amaze you to learn that the independent review did not conclude that they were overpaid and needed to have their salaries cut. Users of public services and utilities managed by the chief executives – Dublin Airport being a case in point, actually – might be surprised to learn that they were underpaid, but that only shows only that they don’t understand the complexity of the questions involved. Funnily enough, I have never come across a review of high-level jobs in the public service that didn’t conclude that the top people should be paid more. You have to get the best people, I suppose.
Sinn Féin has been fairly and squarely chronicling the increases in chief executives’ pay all year. At the last survey, pay rises had been approved for the bosses of Uisce Éireann, An Post, Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann, Bus Átha Cliath, CIÉ, Dublin Port Company, Shannon Airport Group, Gas Networks Ireland, the Irish National Stud, Port of Cork, VHI, the Land Development Agency and Port of Waterford. Further bids are under consideration.
That some people are highly paid and others are not is a feature of our economic system, and most people would say that’s just the way of the world (not everyone would agree, of course). But high pay in the public sector should come with a high level of responsibility, as it does in the private sector. I don’t recall many highly paid public servants being sacked for underperformance, can you? So we must be very lucky in this country with the calibre of people we attract to all senior public service and semi-State roles. They have delivered the high standards of public services and utilities that we enjoy. Right?
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All this is the background to the public sector pay talks that are headed for make-up-your-mind time, whether that happens before or after next week’s strikes and summits. This is written before the weekend which will see, I expect, frantic efforts to come to a last-minute agreement.
Driving the demand for pay increases is not just the parade of salary top-ups for the semi-State bosses but also the seemingly incessant increases in the cost of living – some of which, such as the motorway toll increases, are driven by price hikes by State bodies, incidentally.
Nobody wants to be unpopular. But sometimes being temporarily unpopular for the right reasons can actually work in politics
This remains the central issue in politics, not just here but all over the world. It – perhaps even more than dislike of Donald Trump – drove the surge in support for the Democrats. The backdrop for the victory speech of Hakeem Jeffries – now set to become the speaker of the House of Representatives – contained the Democrats’ most effective campaign slogan: “For an affordable America.” The cost of living is behind much of the discontent in France, in Germany, in Spain. It is reshaping the political map of the West. Political leaders in Europe rightly warn – you’ll hear plenty of it in Dublin next week – about the security threats to the Continent. But many voters are focused on more prosaic concerns. “Pocketbook voters”, the Americans call them. It is one of the eternal truths of politics.
Irish governments have defended themselves against the political impact of the cost of living by giveaway budgets which put more money back in voters’ pockets. Few governments are fortunate enough to have the resources to do so. But even in Ireland there is a sense that this approach is wearing thin.
In this vein Fine Gael, gathering for its ardfheis in Cork this weekend, is wondering if it can continue trying to be all things to all people. Many of its members – the report on the party’s future published this week suggested – believe the party should have a more defined appeal, a clearer identity, a more coherent philosophy.
The report paid much attention to Fine Gael’s view of itself as the party of fiscal prudence and careful economic management. This is certainly part of Fine Gael’s view of itself; I fear it is not widely shared by the public. But it chimes with those who believe the party should have a clearer centre-right perspective. Even Simon Harris thinks so, occasionally. He told a conference on Thursday he feared Ireland was becoming “addicted to spending”. If only the Minister for Finance knew someone who could do something about it.
But tightening up on spending increases – for example on the salaries of semi-State bosses – requires saying no to people from time to time. Just like a fairer public sector pay deal would require eschewing flat-rate percentage increases that favour higher-paid public servants and diverting the money instead to give meaningful increases to lower-paid and younger public servants. But nobody’s talking about that because nobody likes to say no.
Nobody wants to be unpopular. But sometimes being temporarily unpopular for the right reasons can actually work in politics. As Alexander Hamilton says to Aaron Burr in the (political) musical Hamilton, “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”
